BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE PLANNING/LIMITATIONS OF PLANNING AND MAKING PLANNING EFFECTIVE

 

BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE PLANNING/LIMITATIONS OF 

PLANNING

1.      Difficulty of accurate premises- Planning exercise is undertaken on the basis of planning premises which determine by a large number of factors in the environment which are dynamic, therefore limited factors in planning is the difficulty in establishing accurate premise.

2.      Problem of rapid change – In a rapidly changing environment planning process, particularly for long terms plan, become quite complicated, new problem tend to emerge even before solving the existing problem.

3.      Internal inflexibilities- because of internal flexibility, there are limitation for adopting rational approach of planning. The major internal inflexibility are-

a)      Psychology inflexibility- It is a form of resistance to change. Manager and employees in the organization may develop patterns of though and behavior that are hard to change. They look more in terms of present rather than future.

b)     Policy and procedural inflexibility- once policies and procedures are established, they are difficult to change. Through these policies and procedures are meant to facilitate managerial actions by providing guidelines. They often tend to be too exacting and numerous that they leave very little scope for managerial initiative and flexibility. Example – bureaucratic organization where rules and procedures become more important than results.

c)      Capital investment- once funds are invested in fixed assets, the ability to switch over to future course of action become rather limited, and present investment itself become a planning premise. This inflexibility continues unless the organization can reasonably liquidates its investment or change its course of all action or it can write off the investment. However, these options are quite difficult to adopt.

4.      External inflexibility- managers do not have control over external inflexibilities like - economic, political, technological and social forces (also called PEST). These organizational environmental factors can generate more inflexibility for an organization planning-

a)      Political climate- every organization to a greater/lesser degree, is faced with the inflexibility of political climate, attitudes of government towards business, taxation policy, regulation of business etc, generate constraint on the organizational planning process.

b)     Trade unions- the existence of trade unions, particularly those at the national level, tends to restrict freedom of planning. They set the work rules and productivity apart from the wages and other benefits. To that extent, managers are not free to make decisions of their choice, including formulation of a new type of plan.

c)      Technological change- an organization is engaged in its process with a given technology. When there is a change in the technology, it has to face numerous problems resulting in higher cost of production, and less competitive advantage in the market. However the organization, cannot change its technology so frequently, therefore higher is the rate of technological changes, more would be the problem of long term planning.

5.      Time and cost factors- planning process is quite time consuming and costly. planning steps may go for high level of precision, unlimited amount of time in forecasting, evaluating alternatives, developing supportive plans, etc if they do not have limitations of time. Besides this planning is also limited because of the cost factor. If cost increases planning becomes more elaborative and formalized. Additional staff is to be appointed and paper work increases. It cannot be taken beyond the level at which it justified cost.

6.      Failure of people in planning- there are many reasons why people fail in planning like lack of commitment to planning, failure to formulate sound plans, lack of clear and meaningful objectives, tendency to overlook planning premises , failure to see the scope of plan, failure to see planning as a rational approach, excessive reliance on past experience, lack of top management support, lack of proper delegation of authority, lack of adequate control over technology, etc.

 

MAKING PLANNING EFFECTIVE

ü  Linked to long term objectives

ü  Direction for action

ü  Simplicity

ü  Flexible

ü  Consistent

ü  Initiative at top level

ü  Feasible

ü  Participating in planning process

ü  Integration of long term and short term plans

ü  Establishing climate for planning